Thoughts about Kengu Kuma’s Kyokai 境界

“ As a matter of fact, I feel that modern architecture has only now, at long last, begun. By “modern architecture” I mean an architecture that can control boundaries at will, that is, an architecture that can subtly adjust relationships between human beings, between human beings and things, and between human beings and nature. It is not a self-centered, sculptural architecture that is formally self-assertive but an architecture of relationships — a regulating architecture that exists to control diverse relationships.”

“ 事实上，我感觉现代建筑才刚刚起步。现代建筑，我指的是那些能够自己主动控制边界，并且能够微妙的调节人和事物，以及人和自然的关系的建筑。它不再具有一个以自我为中心的，雕塑般的形态。它不需要正儿八经的雄伟的站在那里。建筑，为调节多种关系而存在。

above, quote from japanese architecture designer Kengu kuma 隈研吾, from his book “Kyokai 境界” . Kengu’s many works includes the Nezu museum in Tokyo. However, If you are from US west coast, making sure visit the Portland’s Japanese garden, where you can experience his work.

His thoughts resonate me a lot, let me project it into the design for the user experience. As the technology advances, augmented with the exponential growth of the content, ubiquitous user behavioural signals collection. We are witnessing a transformation of the “information architecture” .

上面引自日本建筑设计师隈研吾的书 “ 境界 ”。 Kengu的许多作品包括东京的Nezu博物馆。如果您来自美国西海岸，请务必访问波特兰的日本花园，在这里您可以体验他的作品。

他的想法引起了我的共鸣, 让我把它投射到用户体验的设计里。随着技术的进步和不断涌现，随着内容的指数增长，无处不在的用户行为信号收集。我们正在目睹着 “信息的建筑'' 的转变。

ONE: from visible interface to invisible interface

In a content-first era, The visible part of user interface already stepped back a lot to allow the content to shine. Especially when most of the content are user generated. On the other hand, these minimal UI plays huge roles to set up the bridge between content and user, regulate their feedback, social interaction and engagement.

从可见的界面都不可见的界面。

在这个内容优先的时代，那些可见的用户界面已经退到了背景中，让那些内容能够真正的成为主角。尤其是那些由用户生成的内容。另外方面，这些极其简洁的界面元素，在帮助用户发现内容方面，和调节用户之间的互动关系间又变得至关重要。

TWO, from a “ predefined interface” to “algorithm based interface”

Machines do a lot things today, they are learning to do more tomorrow. Algorithm not only pick and sort the content for you, but also creates the dynamic user interface from the row data. I was the designer for Google maps tiles. It is hard to imagine to pre-draw the whole world manually for all the zoom levels. Instead, designer’s role there is define the rules and algorithm, to “teach” and “order” the maps rendering engine to draw a maps for you in fly.

第二，从一个之前定义好的界面到一个算法定义的界面，

机器今天已经可以做很多事情了，机器还在“学习”在明天做更多。算法不仅仅是在帮我们挑选并排序内容，同时还能通过读取原始数据来绘制动态的用户界面。我之前谷歌的工作是设计地图，如果要靠人工的去绘制覆盖的全球的，包括全部比例尺的地图，这将是一个不可完成的任务。谷歌地图的设计师的任务，更多的是和工程师一起去定义绘制地图的规则和算法。来“教和命令”绘制地图的引擎，随着你的需求和当前的实时数据现场画一幅地图给你。

Thirdly, From material to behaviours

Using “metaphor” has been a successful method, to materialise abstract concept and make it tangible and understandable. However, our dependency on these metaphors has been replace by more natural interaction and emerging technologies: thinks like rich gestures, input from natural language and voice, object recognition from a camera lens, haptic feedbacks from 6-DOF system, and all these things are connected together and learn from signals from us, and improve themselves. The user interface is fading away, the UX designer’s roles is expanding from sketch and building interactive demos, to define and rules and logic of the behaviours.

三，从物质化到行为的设计

使用“隐喻”是一种成功的方法，可以让抽象概念具体化并使其切实可见。如今我们对这些隐喻的依赖，已被更自然的交互作用和新兴技术所取代：像丰富的手势，自然语言包括语音的输入，摄像头对物体的识别，6-DOF系统的触觉反馈等等。所有这些东西不仅仅都彼此互联，并且不断的通过收集信号来完成自我学习和迭代。用户界面正在逐渐消失，UX设计师的角色从草图和构建交互式演示扩展到定义行为，规则和逻辑。

All of these are pretty much aligns with Kengo Kuma’s statement: design is not longer a self-centered, sculptural thing, but a new approach of control diverse relationships.

Thanks Kengo Kuma for writing this book and sharing the thought with design community.

所有这些都与隈研吾的说法非常吻合：设计不再是一种以自我为中心的雕塑作品，而是一种控制各种关系的新方法。感谢隈研吾老师写这本书，并与设计界分享了想法。